Just down the road from the frozen volcanoscape of El Malpais towers our next stop. You will see the massive sandstone bluff from miles away. It beckons you inward, a seemingly fertile, safe landmark in an otherwise flat, featureless, and terrifying land.
Head for it. It is time to escape the badlands and find a safe haven. We are going to El Morro.
At first glance, El Morro may remind you of the bluffs of El Malpais. There are certain similarities. Both are massive hunks of sandstone dropping off in sheer cliffs, but where El Malpais was a story of nature, El Morro is a story of humanity. Sure, nature left her mark on this land, but so did the people who followed. In this site, they are the ones with the stories.
Just as El Morro beckoned you today, so it has beckoned travelers for centuries. Journeying across these hot, flat, desert plains was not easy, but the cliffs of El Morro provided shelter. A spring in the rock fed a pool of water below the cliffs. El Morro was a literal oasis, the only refuge for miles where people could find shade and water. Party after party of people passed through here, and these people left their mark.
It is as I said: the story of this site is human.
Walk the Inscription Loop around the base of El Morro, and you will find these stories. You will see the marks, the whispers from the past, all carved into stone.
First, there are the ancient stories. Petroglyphs. You may recognize these rock carvings from elsewhere in the Southwest, such as those from Albuquerque. It should not be surprising. Ancient people once settled across much of the Southwest. They did not live only on small reservations as they do today. Centuries ago, all the land was theirs. They spread out, found the best places to live, and built huge pueblos, such as the Atsinna Ruins atop El Morro’s bluffs. They grew food, traded, worked, and recorded their lives in petroglyphs. These ancient people built civilization in the Southwest. Our society is literally built upon the ruins of theirs.
Many different Native Americans have called the Southwest home, including the Ancestral Puebloan, the Navajo, and the Apache. Here at El Morro, however, the petroglyphs are from the Zuni Pueblo people. They still live on today – indeed, the town of Zuni is not far from here. However, their carvings tell of a time long since passed. Look for the bighorn sheep. They do not live in the region anymore, but at one time, they were many. Can you imagine the sheep climbing the cliffs of El Morro? Would it not be a sight to behold? It’s little wonder that the Zuni carved such a picture on the stone.
The Zuni carvings make up only a fraction of the inscriptions on the rock. You will find many others in both English and Spanish. Some are easily readable, others are so old and faded that they are barely legible. You will see one Spanish phrase repeated over and over: Pasó por aquí. Passed through here.
These Spanish carvings tell a story. For centuries, the only people this land saw were Native Americans. Everything changed, however, when the Spanish arrived. In the 1500s, expedition after expedition trekked north from New Spain (now known as Mexico). Conquistadors sought the fabled city of gold – Cibola. They combed the desert for riches. After years of fruitless searches, the Spanish turned their attention to the Native Americans. If they could not become rich, at the very least, they could bring salvation to these “savages.”
Now, imagine the perspective of these so-called “savages.” Native Americans had called this land home for hundreds of years. They'd created society in the Southwest and had long since left their mark on the land - recall the petroglyphs we saw in Albuquerque. When the Spanish arrived, the Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo people were living all throughout modern-day New Mexico and Arizona. They would have wanted to protect their homes, to maintain their way of life, as would we all.
Conflict was inevitable.
Unfortunately, conflict and conquest is a large part of Southwestern history. The story is recorded in history textbooks. Children learn about it in middle school New Mexico history classes. Most living in the Southwest have heard the history.
At El Morro, however, the human side to this history is recorded. We do not just read of colonizers, but rather we read of Ramon Garcia Jurado, a settler who likely participated in campaigns against the land’s native inhabitants. We do not just hear tales of the Pueblo Revolt; we see the name Don Diego De Vargas carved into stone. Ths man was part of the Reconquista, using military force to retake New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt. We do not just listen to stories of missionaries; we see the name Father Antonio Carmago, a reverend whose story includes his failed attempts to convert the Hopi people.
If you look carefully, you will even find an inscription from Don Juan de Oñate. He was the first Spaniard to officially colonize New Mexico. He and several hundred others founded the first Spanish settlement in 1598, thus triggering much of the conflict we discussed earlier. In 1605, Oñate made an expedition west. He sought gold. He did not find it, but he did leave behind his story. He was the first European to carve his name on the rock.
At El Morro, history is not just history. It is recorded before our very eyes. It has a name. It has a story.
This story continues past the Spanish. In 1848, this land was ceded to the United States after the Mexican-American War, and a new era was begun. New history was written. American settlers moved onto the land. Others traveled in wagon trains to California. The United States Army passed through during the Civil War. These people too left their mark.
America F. Baley and her sister Amelia were part of a wagon party. Their emigrant train traveled through this tough land as part of the even tougher journey to California. “UPR” was carved by workers from the Union Pacific Railroad while on a survey to find a railroad route through the West. Misters Engle and Bryn were part of a US Army expedition testing the usefulness of - get this - camels in desert expeditions.
Sometimes history is truly fantastical to imagine.
These are only a small selection of the names on the stone. There are many, many more, and each one has a story. You can find these stories on your own visit to El Morro. Their visitor’s center does a wonderful job of recording the stories that match the names. Take your time. Read through them all. Each story deserves to be remembered.
El Morro is a site very different than any other we’ve visited. It is not a place with a story, but rather a place with many, many stories. In its cliffsides are carved evidence from each period of Southwest history.
Despite the centuries and countless changes to the human landscape, however, people really do not change that much. Consider the varied people that passed through here: Zuni, Spanish, American. They were exceedingly different. Different languages, different cultures, different ways of looking at the world. And yet, all had the same idea to carve their name in stone. All wanted to leave their mark, their story.
Now, think of people today. Do we not do the same thing? Have you not seen graffiti lining city streets? Have you not seen initials carved into trees or picnic tables? Have you not visited a public or school restroom and found writing on the walls?
Everyone wants to leave their mark on the world. The people of the past were not so different than us today. Think on the phrase pasó por aquí. If you do not know Spanish, it may sound formal and important. But translate it, and it has a simple meaning: “Name passed through here.”
How often have you seen phrases like that? “I WAS HERE.” You may have written it yourself. It is a natural impulse. Just like the people from the past, we all have our stories. We all want to record our existence, to prove that we were once a part of this large and mostly uncaring world. We all want to leave our stories behind, even after we’ve passed on.
I WAS HERE.
As time passes, the land changes. People come and go. But our basic humanity remains the same. Past, present, and future, we are all human. Do you feel the connection? Perhaps we are not so distanced from the past as we like to believe. We are all one and the same. We were all here.
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